Austria Diary

7-5-2012 Monday
Drove 280ks from Hungary, across the border into Austria, the border crossing being uneventful - didn't even need to show passports, just had to buy a vignette (a road tax dependent on the number of days you'd be using motorways in the country) which we've had to do in several countries. We're in a small town Klosterneuburg, about 14ks outside of the capital Vienna (Wien), at Donaupark Camping for probably 4 nights. This park has quite a few mhomes and caravans in it.

8-5-2012 Tuesday
As there is a lot of English spoken here I decided to get my hair cut and coloured as it's been over 3 months since the last one. Dave wandered around and checked out the town sites while waiting for me. Then we caught the bus and then the underground train into the main city of Vienna (Austria). We immediately hopped on the Ring Tram which is a sightseeing tram that does a circuit around the inner city while giving a commentary. Visited St Stephan's Church, very impressive inside and out. Viewed the wonderful Opera House from the outside only; apparently it is in full use most of the time. The city seems very clean and has a nice feel about it like Budapest. There is a plaza like area called Schwedenplatz, so named after the country Sweden, which after WWII, took some 2,000 children from Austria back to Sweden and fed them for a few months before returning them to their home.

Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and other European composers were drawn to Vienna by the Habsburgs' generous patronage during the 18th and 19th centuries. The waltz originated in this city, and was perfected by Johann Strauss junior. There was even a WC (public toilet) which had classical music playing so you can listen while you 'go'. In the early 20th century, Vienna was also a city of design and painting. The Vienna Secessionist movement, the equivalent of Art Nouveau (Jugendstil), created such talents as artist Gustav Klimt and architect Otto Wagner.

Back home we walked down the road to an Asian restaurant for dinner, which was very nice.

9-5-2012 Wednesday
Rode the bus and underground train into Vienna (Austria) city again and first up, visited baroque Karlskirche (St Charles' Church) which was very ornate inside with a lot of multi-coloured marble columns and other pieces around altars, etc. We've marvelled at this beautiful multi-coloured marble before in other churches but we didn't realise that all these colours, especially the multi-colours, are not natural. We heard a lady, probably a teacher, speaking English to kids, saying that these colours were not natural. They grind marble to a powder which can then be mixed with colours and plaster, and then applied to columns or other pieces and then polished. Apparently making the swirls and different patterns in the finished product, is a skill in itself. So we learn something every day! Inside the church an elevator had been rigged up with scaffolding looking supports, and it looked more like a temporary workmen's lift rather than one for tourists. Once you got out of the lift, you then had to walk up quite a few wooden steps, also temporary looking, to a spot near the top of the inside of the main dome which had paintings on it, for a panoramic view. However, the view was behind glass and metal grills so couldn't get good photos anyway. We felt that the lift and scaffolding really detracted from the inside of the church, especially as they obscured the paintings inside the main dome and the panoramic view wasn't all that great.

The Parliament Building was designed by an Austrian but using Greek design/principles so it looks like one of the Greek temples we've been seeing over the last few months. We had a pleasant walk through the lovely Stadt Park (City Park) where there were plenty grassy areas with people sitting or lying down enjoying the sunny day. In the middle of the park is a small, probably manmade lake with wood ducks and ducklings swimming around and competing with the pidgeons for any food thrown into the lake for them. There were statues of the famous composers, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert and Strauss. There are many interesting old buildings with lots of labour intensive decorations and statues. We saw many horse-drawn carriages, for hire, with drivers dressed in the olden day livery. We'd seen them in other capitals but not as many as here, and it's probably because this city is very much a city of classical music, with concerts being conducted frequently, and the carriages and the music go together as they did, hundreds of years ago.

10-5-2012 Thursday
Had easier day today. We walked through the nearby quaint town of Klosterneuburg and onto the 18th Stift Klosterneuburg Kirche (Church), its 2 tall spires can be seen from quite a distance away. Inside is breathtaking, very ornate with no part of the walls or ceiling being bare - they are adorned with either paintings or some sort of decoration. A big old building attached to the church is the concert hall and museum. It is quite impressive outside with 2 big domes and white statues placed up high near the top of the building. We walked around the lovely gargens belonging to the church and then walked over to the Asian restaurant for a nice buffet lunch. In the afternoon, after we recovered from lunch, we rode the bikes around for a while and did some grocery shopping on the way home.

11-5-2012 Friday
Drove 80ks west to a town called Krems (Austria) and a camping park Donaupark Camping for 2 nights. I was wondering why the last park we were at, and this one, have the same name. I have since found out that 'Donau' means Danube and these parks are situated near or on the Danube River, as are a lot of camping parks here. Well we've driven in the mhome and buses across the Danube, ridden our bikes over the Danube, and walked over it, so today we took a boat cruise up and down a short 35km section of it between the towns of Krem and Melk. Dave reckons he doesn't have to take me for a cruise on the Danube now! It was a pleasant ride with only 2 stops. The trip upstream took 2h 40mins and the trip back downstream only took 1h 45mins as the river really races. There were lots of terraced hillsides for grapes, for which this area is well known. Peaches and apricots are also grown in the area. In 2 spots along the river, there was a ferry point, where the ferry used the river current along with an overhead wire rope and pulley, to travel across the river to the other side.

Some of the sites we saw from the boat were St Michaels Church (1770's); Stift Göttweig (church) in the distance and could also be seen from our park; Dürnstein Castle ruins, famous for holding the English Richard the Lionheart prisoner; Schloss Schönbühl; and Melk Abbey (1770's). This town was the end of the upstream trip and we had half an hour to walk around before the return trip. There were some lovely looking houses along the banks in various towns we passed. Another interesting sight was 2 naked middle aged men, just standing on the river bank (a little way from each other) with everything exposed for everyone on the boat to see. The area was covered with bushes and trees so we thought they might just be having a nude swim or sunbathe. They didn't seem perturbed at all that a tourist boat with heaps of people on it, could see them. As we passed them, the people sitting outside down the back of the boat, let out a cheer!

At one stop we saw a building with the flood year levels marked and 2002 was near to roof level!

12-5-2012 Saturday
A rainy day - we haven't had too many of them luckily. We took our umbrellas and walked around the lovely, neat and clean, little town of Krem, with its impressive old gate, old buildings and cobbled streets. There were a couple of old churches but no access. Near the Stadtpfarrkirche church (the city's parish church) there was an interesting old residential square with cars inside but no obvious way to drive them out. Around the outside walls of the Piarist church there were some unusual fresco's and statues.

13-5-2012 Sunday Mother's Day and I even received a call from Andrew
We drove about 10ks to a big, impressive monastery, Stift Göttweig (in Austria), the one on a hill that we could see from our camping park. It had some defensive walls around part of it so would have been part of a fortress centuries ago. We could only view a small part of it, mainly the church which kept in with the tradition of being very ornate and just jaw-dropping! There was a separate building in the same grounds, a small chapel, in which some christenings seemed to be in progress as there were 3 prams outside - the chapel was so small they couldn't even get the prams in there. There was a museum but we decide not to go into it as we tend to take a couple hours in museums and we still had a little way to go to our destination. We also noticed a restaurant on the premises and as we left, we saw the car park had filled up.

We then drove 140ks west, across the border into the Czech Republic, to a town called Ceský Kremlov and Camping Chvalsiny (about 10ks out) for 1 night.